Lensbaby 3G
In the May edition of Digital SLR User magazine is a four page article entitled "Take One Lens" and the lens is a Lensbaby!
To read the full feature, please download the PDF file (620KB).

Lensbaby 3G
The third generation Lensbaby is a quality, coated, cemented achromatic doublet set in a wildly adjustable mount which can be precisely locked and fine-tuned for controlled defocus, chromatic glow and reverse Schiempflug effects.
MASTER Photo-Digital

LensBaby 3G
In this high-tech world, it's nice to find a gadget that's distinctly low -tech but still worth buying. The third generation of this innovative gadget, the Lensbaby 3G costs £200.
If you've never seen one before, a Lensbaby is basically a lens mounted on a flexible bellows, which attached to the camera in place of the normal lens. Focusing is achieved by pulling or pushing the lens plinth with your fingers, while you look through the viewfinder. When you see an effect you like just shoot away.
...... To be frank, you need to use one of these gadgets to really appreciate how flexible it can be and what it can do for your picture-taking. It's also true that you need to use one for a while to even get an idea of what can be achieved with it.
........ I'll happily admit that it took me a little while to visualise what the Lensbaby could produce, but once I got into the flow, it was a piece of cake and great fun too. I especially liked doing close-ups and using very shallow depth-of-field for unusual effects.

Verdict: £200 is a fair amount of cash so it's not an impulse buy. But I must admit I had great fun with it. If it's in your bag when the situation arises, it can be used to great effect. Recommended.
PROS: Locks in position, there's a focus ring, great fun to use.
CONS: Nothing, apart from the fact that you may tire of the effect.
Performance * * * * *
Value for money * * * *

Truly innovative products are becoming a rarity in the photographic arena, but the Lensbaby - a simple accessory that allows you to control the plane of focus - is one such device.

My favourite thing about major photo trade shows is that you get to see all kinds of weird and wonderful gadgets and gizmos for the first time. Often, it's also the last time you see them as the majority of them fail to find the financial investment they need to get off the ground.
Last month's PM had an extended news section dedicated to the PMA show in Florida. Of all the featured new products, the PM Innovation of the Show award went to a small, inexpensive lens accessory weirdly named the Lensbaby.
So what exactly is a Lensbaby? Basically, it's a glass element fitted to a flexible barrel that can be tilted, pushed and pulled. The bellows action of the barrel focuses the image - pull the lens collar inwards to focus on distant subjects, extend to focus closer.
Then, by bending the barrel in literally any direction, it's possible to vary the plane of focus much like you would with a tilt and shift lens, so that some areas appear sharp while others are blurred. All this can obviously be seen through the viewfinder and as you'll discover, you only have to move the barrel by very slight amounts to make a major alteration in the plane of focus.
The Lensbaby is supplied with three disks that act as apertures. A plastic tool allows you to remove and insert disks relatively easily and you can choose from f/4, f5.6 for f/8. Without any disks fitted, the Lensbaby operates as an f/2.8 optic.
Because the bellows action of the Lensbaby is very basic, it proves to be very simple to use and it is very easy to create unusual effects. At the start I was quite crude in how I bent the barrel, but with a bit more time you discover that a slower, more precise action does allow for far more control.
The focal length of 50mm is a good choice and there is always the option of fitting wide-angle or telephoto converters designed for camcorders or digital cameras as the Lensbaby sports a 37mm screw thread on the front.
VERDICT: Whilst the Lensbaby has limited uses, it does open op some creative options that can lead to unusual results. However, you'll have to work hard to find suitable subjects and I'll admit I did struggle a little. Photoshop users will probably point out that similar effects can be achieved using software, but where's the fun in that? The price tag of £70 seems reasonable for this unusual accessory and I certainly think it's worth trying out.

RATING * * * *
VALUE FOR MONEY * * * *

Lensbaby - What do you get when you cross a bellow lens with a tilt and shift lens? Photographer Craig Strong wondered just that and came up with the Lensbaby. Its simply a bellows with a lens on the end but it creates some bizarre effects. Moving the front element around gives you one point of focus with the rest of the image out of focus, depending on the angle you tilt it at. We found that it's best for creating portraits with a difference, but if you've got the time to get the hang of using it you can apply it to most areas of photography and get some interesting results. Great for use as a fun gadget to add some spice to your photography, or to create one special photo in a set of normal shots.
RATING * * *
A very cool gadget but is very specialist in application

Special effects Lens - The Lensbaby, which has focal length of 50mm, uses the same general principle as a bellows camera, in which photographers manually move the focusing collar in and out with their fingertips. The device generates optical changes in the lens element to produce different picture effects. Users simply move the sweet-spot of focus around the picture plane by bending the glass optic out of a parallel position to the image capture plane, rather like a tilt-shift lens. Photographer change aperture settings by removing one aperture ring and replacing it with another, with settings available at f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6 and f/8. Normal focus is 30cm, while the little device will focus at a minimum distance of 17cm.
It is available in camera mounts for almost all SLR camera bodies including Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax and FourThirds system.

A wonderfully creative accessory launched at the PMA show in the US is the Lensbaby. This is a simple single-element lens mounted on a bellows unit that allows tilt and a slight amount of shift movement to give you control of the plane of focus. The effect is that you can introduce a lot of blur into your photography while highlighting the area you want people to look at, as it will be the only sharp bit of the picture.
Moving away from high-quality optics, the original lens is uncoated. However, a new mark ll version has been announced that uses a sharper coated doublet.
The Lensbaby fits directly onto the camera and it is available in just about every mount you can think of, including some more unlikely ones such as Leica R and M42, Canon FD, manual Minolta, Olympus Four Thirds E and OM.
With a focal length of about 50mm, Lensbaby uses interchangeable aperture stop rings that cover f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6 and f/8. Lensbaby ll also has f/2.